Titanic tourist sub missing

[jeremyp]

Well, it's not a bad philosophy per se, so long as its executed correctly and safely.

Elon Musk used the same philosophy at SpaceX - its why they now land Falcon 9 first stage boosters on land and on autonomous drone ships when many high profile rocket scientists called it a pipe dream that was doomed to failure; its why the F9 launch cadence is faster than any otheer rocket in the world; its why F9 is the lowest cost launch-to-orbit rocket in the world, its why F9 has the highest launch-to-orbit success rate of any other rocket - 99.12% - the last three being the main reasons why SpaceX are now the world's premier launch provider. They did all this without putting any lives at risk. The Falcon 9 program took 10 years and 84 launches before they were allowed to risk putting people in a capsule on top of the rocket.

And yes, while Musk is not a licensed aerospace engineer, he does have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the engineering that goes into building and flying rockets. On the other hand, Stockton Rush actually was an engineer... BSc (Eng) in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering from Princeton. He forgot the basic philosophy of what he learned, and he ought to have known better than to do what he was trying to do. At the very least he should have been extensively testing Titan as an unmanned ROV for many deep dives before ever risking a person inside it.

Rush put people's lives at risk while he was busy breaking stuff and innovating, ultimately killing himself and four others due to his own arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.

I was thinking about comparing OceanGate with SpaceX. SpaceX also moves fast and breaks things but not actually when human lives are on the line. When human lives are on the line, they tend to revert to more traditional safe engineering e.g. Crew Dragon. They also manage to keep their "visionary" CEO and owner away from the real engineering.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

I read the whole article. Everyone who posts in this thread should.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me:



Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!



And there's a rule that you don't build cars out of tinsel, or the cages at a zoo out of balsa wood. That would be innovative as hell, right?

Stockton Rush was a complete ******* idiot who got innocent people killed. I hope that at least their families can sue the **** out of his estate.

Rush talked in the second paragraph you quoted about how he would like to be remembered as an innovator. I hope he is remembered for the lives he snuffed out, the four innocent people he murdered through depraved indifference.

 

[smartcooky]

I was thinking about comparing OceanGate with SpaceX. SpaceX also moves fast and breaks things but not actually when human lives are on the line. When human lives are on the line, they tend to revert to more traditional safe engineering e.g. Crew Dragon. They also manage to keep their "visionary" CEO and owner away from the real engineering.

Except of course, they do no such thing.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Well, it's not a bad philosophy per se, so long as its executed correctly and safely.

Elon Musk used the same philosophy at SpaceX - its why they now land Falcon 9 first stage boosters on land and on autonomous drone ships when many high profile rocket scientists called it a pipe dream that was doomed to failure; its why the F9 launch cadence is faster than any otheer rocket in the world; its why F9 is the lowest cost launch-to-orbit rocket in the world, its why F9 has the highest launch-to-orbit success rate of any other rocket - 99.12% - the last three being the main reasons why SpaceX are now the world's premier launch provider. They did all this without putting any lives at risk. The Falcon 9 program took 10 years and 84 launches before they were allowed to risk putting people in a capsule on top of the rocket.

And yes, while Musk is not a licensed aerospace engineer, he does have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the engineering that goes into building and flying rockets. On the other hand, Stockton Rush actually was an engineer... BSc (Eng) in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering from Princeton. He forgot the basic philosophy of what he learned, and he ought to have known better than to do what he was trying to do. At the very least he should have been extensively testing Titan as an unmanned ROV for many deep dives before ever risking a person inside it.

Rush put people's lives at risk while he was busy breaking stuff and innovating, ultimately killing himself and four others due to his own arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.

You mean that OceanGate are as competent as a company which manages to have eigthy year old technology fail before it launches? Yeah, that's an apt comparison.

Oh and Musk isn't any kind of engineer, he's a computer programmer and a bad one at that.

 

[smartcooky]

You mean that OceanGate are as competent as a company which manages to have eigthy year old technology fail before it launches?

You're talking about Starship right?

Do you see Starship mentioned in the post you quoted. No you don't, so quit it with the disingenuous crap. I thought you were better than that.

Oh and Musk isn't any kind of engineer, he's a computer programmer and a bad one at that.

If you want to discuss this, make thread, and I will join you there where I can list parts of Falcon 9's design and engineering that he was directly involved in... but not here as its off topic.

 

[Puppycow]

Well, it's not a bad philosophy per se, so long as its executed correctly and safely.

Elon Musk used the same philosophy at SpaceX

Speaking of colossal douchebags ...

To me, the whole "if you're not breaking things you're not innovating" thing sounds like empty Silicone Valley buzzwords, not a philosophy.

 

[jeremyp]

Speaking of colossal douchebags ...

To me, the whole "if you're not breaking things you're not innovating" thing sounds like empty Silicone Valley buzzwords, not a philosophy.

Breaking things generally means you are pushing the boundaries of what the thing is capable of doing. You can learn a lot from doing that*. However, if you have an expectation that things might break, it’s not a good idea to put people inside them.

*although if it could be predicted beforehand, it doesn’t count.

 

[smartcooky]

To me, the whole "if you're not breaking things you're not innovating" thing sounds like empty Silicone Valley buzzwords, not a philosophy.

And yet, it works. The proper name for it is "Fast Iteration" and it is a recognized and accepted engineering philosophy - IF as I said, it is executed correctly and safely.

Boiled down to its basics, you can never know what the limits of your engineering design is until you push it outside its design specs. This is why, for example, rocket building companies will pressure-test items such as propellant tanks beyond their design limits to destruction. Then they can be confident it won't break so long as the design specs are not exceeded.

This what Rush should have done. He should have been carrying out a comprehensive program of remotely diving this thing down into the deep oceans with no-one on board, then bringing it back to the surface and subjecting it to the most rigorous NDT examinations, making any necessary changes, then repeating the procedure as many times as necessary to ensure that it can reliably dive to the specified depths withing imploding. Instead he chose to risk people's lives... its unforgivably reckless.

 

[jeremyp]

And yet, it works. The proper name for it is "Fast Iteration" and it is a recognized and accepted engineering philosophy - IF as I said, it is executed correctly and safely.

Boiled down to its basics, you can never know what the limits of your engineering design is until you push it outside its design specs. This is why, for example, rocket building companies will pressure-test items such as propellant tanks beyond their design limits to destruction. Then they can be confident it won't break so long as the design specs are not exceeded.

This what Rush should have done. He should have been carrying out a comprehensive program of remotely diving this thing down into the deep oceans with no-one on board, then bringing it back to the surface and subjecting it to the most rigorous NDT examinations, making any necessary changes, then repeating the procedure as many times as necessary to ensure that it can reliably dive to the specified depths withing imploding. Instead he chose to risk people's lives... its unforgivably reckless.

The trouble is he couldn’t afford that. As it was, he got to make some dives. If he had done any proper testing he may well not have been able to make any manned dives.

I’m not trying to excuse his behaviour, just trying to understand why he behaved recklessly.

 

[MRC_Hans]

And yet, it works. The proper name for it is "Fast Iteration" and it is a recognized and accepted engineering philosophy - IF as I said, it is executed correctly and safely.

Boiled down to its basics, you can never know what the limits of your engineering design is until you push it outside its design specs. This is why, for example, rocket building companies will pressure-test items such as propellant tanks beyond their design limits to destruction. Then they can be confident it won't break so long as the design specs are not exceeded.

This what Rush should have done. He should have been carrying out a comprehensive program of remotely diving this thing down into the deep oceans with no-one on board, then bringing it back to the surface and subjecting it to the most rigorous NDT examinations, making any necessary changes, then repeating the procedure as many times as necessary to ensure that it can reliably dive to the specified depths withing imploding. Instead he chose to risk people's lives... its unforgivably reckless.

It is also a test method. In safety critical applications, while you often design safely, then test to the expected exposure, you can also test till it breaks. This is usually called step-stress test. It has some great advantages: You get to know your actual safety margin (and you may thus save on production if you find you have overdone something), and more importantly, you find out how dangerous possible failure modes are.

It is also a quite expensive method, and Rush's problem would be that he was building a one-off device. Some could be done with models, however, e.g. fatigue accumulation in materials and component interfaces (which might have avoided the actual disaster).

What I'm trying to say is that his motto about breaking things did not apply well in his type of project, and where it might apply, he didn't use it.

Hans

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Speaking of colossal douchebags ...

To me, the whole "if you're not breaking things you're not innovating" thing sounds like empty Silicone Valley buzzwords, not a philosophy.

It's the kind of attitude that gets people killed and destroys progress in experimental programmes.

If your boss is saying that kind of guff your next task should be typing up your resignation letter/getting yourself fired.

 

[Puppycow]

The trouble is he couldn’t afford that. As it was, he got to make some dives. If he had done any proper testing he may well not have been able to make any manned dives.

I’m not trying to excuse his behaviour, just trying to understand why he behaved recklessly.

Yeah, didn’t he mention that he got the carbon fiber for a bargain because its shelf life had expired? Testing is expensive.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Well he was stupid, but you can't say he was insincere. He truly believed it was save. Otherwise he wouldn't ride it all the time.

 

[Pixel42]

Well he was stupid, but you can't say he was insincere. He truly believed it was save. Otherwise he wouldn't ride it all the time.

We're well used on this forum to people who have managed to fool themselves into believing something that isn't true, despite ample evidence to the contrary. In most cases they have never bothered to look for, let alone at, such evidence, and deny its validity even when it is brought to their attention.

Ignorance is not an excuse, especially when it's willful.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well he was stupid, but you can't say he was insincere. He truly believed it was save. Otherwise he wouldn't ride it all the time.

In no sane world is that actually a quality, backhanded or not.

 

[Foster Zygote]

After reading the New Yorker article, I do not agree.

Rush deserved lengthy law suits designed to extract every last penny of his wealth. He deserved a prison sentence for reckless negligence at the least, if not homicide. Stockton Rush deserved to see the consequences of his hubris and pay for them. Instead, he just ceased to exist while doing something he loved. About the only good thing you can say about the outcome is that, if he hadn't been on the sub, somebody else would have died needlessly.

At the very least, I would like to think that he knew he was ****** when he dropped the ballast and tried to ascend, but had the decency to keep it from his passengers. But he seems to have been very good at convincing himself that truth was whatever he wanted it to be, so he probably did think he had plenty of time to reach the surface.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Rush put people's lives at risk while he was busy breaking stuff and innovating, ultimately killing himself and four others due to his own arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.

That's what gets me. Perfectly orthodox engineers break stuff all the time - specifically to see at what loads it will break. My wife was involved in destructive testing of gas turbine blades for several years, so they could greatly reduce the chances of one breaking while a unit was running in a power plant.

Rush's hostility to sound practices seems to have been motivated more by the fact that they would have proved that his **** would break.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again if this was a lone crazed inventor who died alone testing his new "outside the box" submarine design it would still be stupid but it would be a radically different thing.

There's (some) validity in saying that people who break barriers and do things outside the norm are good for society. But only if they aren't putting other people's ass on the line with him.

Franz Reichelt didn't take 4 other rich French idiots and 1 innocent kid with him as passengers when he jumped of the Eiffel Tower in a wingsuit.

 

[Foster Zygote]

You can get through life with this approach in some careers, but if you do something dangerous, like deep sea exploration (or being president ) it tends to end in disaster.

It's also occurred to me that Rush, like Trump, only got as far as he did because he was born into considerable wealth.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Again if this was a lone crazed inventor who died alone testing his new "outside the box" submarine design it would still be stupid but it would be a radically different thing.

There's (some) validity in saying that people who break barriers and do things outside the norm are good for society. But only if they aren't putting other people's ass on the line with him.

Franz Reichelt didn't take 4 other rich French idiots and 1 innocent kid with him as passengers when he jumped of the Eifel Tower in a wingsuit.

I also thought about the flat earther who launched himself in a rocket.

As much as Rush portrayed himself as a pioneering explorer, it was really all about selling tickets at $250,000 a pop, and he wanted to make as much per dive as he could.